Back to the Beginning
But I digress. Let’s go back to the beginning. I am of Haitian descent. Because I am of Haitian descent, my culture is infused with French culture.
Having been raised in Haitian culture, I became acquainted with colognes and perfumes very early. My first cologne gift was English Leather! I must have been in the third or fourth grade. As I said, I was very young. If my memory serves me well, it came in a three-pack containing three scents:
- Musk
- Sandalwood
- (I can’t remember the last one. I think it was just English Leather.)
Even at a young age, I knew that it was cheap. It was watery and the scents didn’t last long. I bathed in the stuff … but it was cheap. Still, it was a nice introduction to colognes when I was a child. I wore this by brand-interchanging between the three colognes, as one of my younger uncles wore the infamous Old Spice.
After that, my biological father gave me a cologne called One Man Show. By middle school (eighth grade), I had gone down the Drakkar Noir cologne road. That cologne was about twenty-five dollars! I wore this for a little while. My mom used to buy it for me. Then I found out about the Polo cologne green bottle! It was the original scent. The cologne was too expensive for a teenager like me (until I got a job). The older brother of one of my best friends used to wear it (and everything else Ralph Lauren)! I didn’t purchase my first bottle until I had my first job at the age of fifteen or sixteen. I still love and wear this cologne to this day! It was a part of growing up, even though I wore too much! I bathed in the stuff. I probably drove away more girls than I attracted! I didn’t have a father, so, as with everything else, I spent years trying to make sense of this stuff. Sometime in high school, I lost interest in cologne.
My Vanilla Life as a Young Adult
By the time I got married, I was so focused on being a husband and fulfilling the requisite roles that I completely lost interest in fashion, scents, and everything else. I just didn’t care, as this new role consumed me. It was my wife who took me to a Macy’s store and bought me my first colognes as an adult.
I had no idea what I wanted, so the lady at the cologne counter asked me to describe what I liked in life. My statements were as follows:
- Cherry wood furniture
- Plush luxury leather chairs found in elegant libraries and gentleman’s clubs
- Rolex watches
- Luxury cars
- Well-tailored suits
- Well-tailored shoes, preferably alligator
That’s what I described to the lady. And with this, she introduced the following colognes to me:
- Aramis
- Obsession
Later on, I would purchase:
- Paul Sebastian
- Polo (green bottle)
The funny thing is, my wife loved for me to go to bed wearing a certain cologne. Even after I grew to detest it, I would still wear it to bed at times because she liked it. The things husbands and wives do for each other! The sacrifices! LOL!
When I began to come back to myself, fashion and other colognes piqued my interest again. I faded out the Obsession cologne, Paul Sebastian cologne, and some other ones.
But I digress…
Your Why…
What is your “why” for wearing colognes? You’re doing it for one of two reasons:
- Personal
- Catching
Catching
In the game (pimping), the pursuit of women is called CATCHING. Why? Probably because you are actively pursuing a woman to get her. In other words, you want this woman in your life.
In the game, the art of catching has two dynamics:
- Mouthpiece
- Tools
“Mouthpiece” is a symbolic term representing your ability to talk to a woman and catch her. To be in the game, you must develop a “strong” mouthpiece. Because this man’s business is women, he will either develop the mouthpiece or not be successful.
Some men are naturally gifted with great mouthpieces. However, unfortunately, many men don’t have good mouthpieces. It is my observation that either you are born with it, you develop it through practice, or you just don’t have it (and, thus, never really catch women). In my circle, several friends have great “mouthpieces.” Watching them in action is almost like watching Michael Jordan in his prime. They are so charismatic!
She Works Her Tools…
Tools are the material things and your carriage that you use to catch the opposite sex. If you think about it, women have tools, too. She does? Yes. Some of the tools that she uses to attract men are:
- Heels
- Makeup
- Low-cut outfits
- Short skirts
- Perfume
- Thongs
- Etc.
As a matter of fact, I concluded that a woman eventually notices her attributes and then learns how to work them to attract men. Many times, her mother or other older women in her life will point out her attributes to her. Her attributes can be:
- Hair color
- Hair length
- Pretty face
- Breasts
- Long legs
- Calves
- Thighs
- Butt
- Small waist
- Hips
- Lips
- Eye shape
- Eye color
- Height
- Dimples
- Weight
- Etc.
Once she figures it out, no matter the weather, she will tend to show it. If she’s heavy-chested, she’ll wear shirts and sweaters that show her cleavage. Even in the winter, she’ll make sure her sweater or turtleneck is tight, just to show how large her breasts are.
If she has gorgeous legs, then even in the dead of winter, she’ll figure out a way to show them. If she has a beautifully shaped butt, she’ll make sure to show its curvature.
If she has nice eyes, she will wear a type of eyeliner to show off their shape or wear lashes to get your attention.
She’ll wear thongs because it makes her feel sexy. It also emancipates each cheek to move independently to attract men.
If her waist is small, she will never cover that area, in order to draw attention to it.
If she has beautiful hips, she will wear snug skirts, pants, or jeans.
If she has long, gorgeous hair, she’ll always have it out to show its beauty and health. And this will draw men in. Why? Because all over the world, men are usually attracted to long hair. Hell, even the Bible tells the woman that her hair is her crown.
And let’s not forget the scent…
Personal…
When I was a young kid, I probably wore colognes just to smell good. I had no idea why I should be wearing that stuff. There wasn’t an elder man to teach me these things. I eventually figured it out from my peers who had fathers or older brothers. It’s rare, but some men wear cologne just because they like to wear it.
I am both. I wear cologne because women love it. One of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen made a comment when her colleague complimented the Tom Ford Cologne that I was wearing. After I said “thank you,” the other woman looked me straight in the eye and told her colleague, “Mr. Muhammad always smells good.” Given that this came from a drop-dead beautiful woman, I knew that my effort would never be in vain.
In addition to being a connoisseur of colognes all my life, I also wear colognes for my personal enjoyment. What do I mean by that? Even in my relationship, I wore colognes that my wife didn’t like but that I liked. My cologne empowers me, just like a fresh haircut or a nice new suit! Often, I will wear a cologne that smells great to me but maybe not to the women in my life or in the workplace. But, hey, I love the art of scent! At the end of the day, I don’t live for a woman … I live for my God, my manhood, the fundamental principles of manhood, and my purpose in life. Everything else comes after that.
Attraction … Pheromones
We are all made from the same source. Because of this, there are significant similarities in the sexes across all species. One thing you’ll notice across the board in the study of the male and female species is that:
The male pursues the female.
In essence, the male must prove that he is the best MALE among the other males. In the realm of fish, many have to perform a certain dance to get chosen by the female fish. Some species fight other males to the death to prove themselves. That beautiful peacock that you see in nature? He’s a male, not a female. He reveals the strength of his genetics by spreading his feathers to show how handsome he is. He also walks around the female, showing her how gorgeous he is. All of these male species are competing to prove themselves! Then she chooses whose seed she wants to reproduce!
Lions … the Kings of the Jungle
Years ago, I was talking to a colleague who was originally from Cameroon. I told him that I didn’t like eating goat (meat) as a child because it had a slight scent to it. It wasn’t that I hated it; I just wasn’t excited to eat it as many people were (I would drink the milk, though. More on that later.)
Anyway, after my comment about goat, he quickly replied that it sounded like my culture ate male goats. I asked him why he thought this. He told me that, among animals, it is the male that usually smells the strongest! Then he said, “As a matter of fact, in the countryside back home (villages), we know when a lion is in the vicinity because we can smell him! They smell very strong!”
The Goat on the Mountain…
As soon as he said this, I remembered the one time I had visited Haiti as a child in the early 80s. One of our uncles had some land in the countryside, so we spent a weekend there, on a mountain. When we got there, we saw a goat tied to a tree. That Sunday, the goat disappeared. Later that morning, some mountain men came along and were given the head and sack of testicles. They made a quick fire and seared the hair off the head and testicles. That was the worst smell I had ever experienced! And they ate the testicles right there. Ugh! Well, as soon as my colleague said what he said, I realized that, in my culture, maybe we do eat male goats!
Pheromones!
The question is: Why does the male species smell so strong? You are aware that even men of the human species usually smell stronger than women. Why? The answer is pheromones….
To be continued…
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